Pioneer Rechargable batteries (NiMH)

[Excavatoree]

I bought some cordless headphones a few years ago, and now the batteries are at the end of their life.  I searched for some "Pioneer" branded batteries, just because I was used to them.  I found some, but they were 60 dollars a pair!  (For two, AA batteries!!)   Who on earth would pay that?  Why are these people selling them at this price?  Is anyone buying them?  What's going on?

Well, forget that, I thought.  I went to the local store, and bought two NiMH batteries.  They wouldn't charge.  I looked at them, thinking "Maybe they have a specific size "bump" on the positive end or something."  Nope - that wasn't it.  I finally saw it.  About 3/8 of an inch, or about 10mm of the protective insulating film covering the battery's metal case was removed from the negative end, and the charger had a spring terminal on the side that I never noticed that contacted the case (negative terminal) to complete some circuit to allow charging.

That's criminally clever, I think.  Now I've got to carefully trim some of the plastic film away, and save myself 55 dollars.

[williefleete]

my old canon powershot 350 has a similar thing, there is an extra contact near one of the negative contacts which you short to that said negative to trigger the camera's charge circuit, a bit of tin foil or stranded wire from there to the outside of the battery allows you to use bog standard NiMh rechargables in it instead of the god knows how expensive (or rare in my case) legit batteries